Balboa understood this statement to mean two large bodies of water connected by a smaller body of water, and therefore, naturally came to the conclusion that the Indians meant that the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans were connected at some point or other along the isthmus by a natural water-way. What the Indians really meant was that there were two large bodies of land, to the north and south, and that these large bodies were connected by a long, narrow strip of land, part of which he was then exploring.
The Spaniards, naturally eager to extend their explorations into the great western ocean, began to search for the connecting water-way, and this quest was continued by them for nearly half a century; but they finally realized that the two great oceans of the world were separated by the impassable barrier of a continuous chain of mountainous land. The conquerer of Mexico, Cortez, after finishing the subjugation of the Indians of that part of the Spanish possessions, in 1526, was commanded by the King of Spain to proceed to the Isthmus and to assist in the search for the secret water-way.
Cortez answered the command of the King by saying that if he could not find the natural water-way he would proceed to make one. The brave old soldier, all his life trained in the habit of surmounting great difficulties, declared that if there were obstacles and mountains, there were also men with brains and hands, and that if he could not find the water-way as commanded by the King, he would carry out the order by constructing a canal to connect the two oceans. And so, the idea of Columbus being to find a short water-route between Europe and the East Indies and coasts of Asia, by the completion of the Panama Canal, the United States is carrying out the original purpose of efforts of the discoverer of America and the orders of the King of Spain to Cortez, to make an artificial water-way which will shorten the lines of trade and commerce around the globe.
Between those early days and the present time every great maritime nation of the world has been interested in isthmian canal construction—Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy have all, at one time or another in the intervening years, considered the advisability and feasibility of constructing a canal somewhere across the narrow territory between the Atlantic and Pacific.
Nine Different Routes Proposed
In all, nine routes have been surveyed or considered by some nation or some company. The first route to the north is known as the Tehuantepec route, which extends across Mexico from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, a distance of nearly 200 miles, and over which route an English syndicate, headed by the Pearsons, is now operating a splendid railroad system. Captain Eads, one of the most prominent of American engineers of his time, advocated the building of a ship railway over this route, a railway so constructed that cars could be let down into the water under the bottoms of ships, drawing them out of the water and across the land to the ocean on the other side.
Of course, this project might have been feasible with the smaller sized merchant ships of forty years ago, but it would hardly be so for transporting the gigantic freighters and passenger vessels that now traverse the seas.
The second route, towards the south, was called the Honduras Bay route, a route across the Republic of Honduras from Honduras Bay on the east to the Pacific.
The third route came to be known as the Nicaraguan route. For a long time this was the most popular of all the routes with the American Congress and the American people. The Nicaraguan route contemplated the utilization of the San Juan River on the east, between the Atlantic Coast and the Nicaraguan lakes, the Nicaraguan lakes as far as they extended westward, and thence through a canal across the dividing land from the upper lake to Nicaragua to the Pacific Ocean at Brita. The Nicaraguan route would be 377 miles shorter between San Francisco and New York than is the Panama route, along which the United States is now constructing a canal.
A fourth route was surveyed between the Chirique Lagoon on the eastern side to the Pacific Ocean.